Interviews of Isabelle Shaw aged 87

Interview with Isabelle Shaw, who would have been about 87 years old at the time. This interview is largely about the village of Drummore and the shops and businesses that Isabelle remembered from her childhood, when her aunt and uncle ran McHaffie's shop. The shop sold everything from spectacles and clothing to linoleum. Isabelle talks about her childhood and the games and tricks they played, especially at the expense of local worthies such as Johnny Chalmers. She describes electricity being installed and also the first indoor toilet in Drummore. She mentions individual houses and considers how the village has changed over time. She describes how the community worked together and remembers that it was possible at one time to tell the difference between people from Drummore and Stoneykirk from their dialect and way of speaking.

Isabelle also talks about her own family history going further back, a branch of which settled in the Yarrow valley at St Mary's loch, and ran a hostel that was popular with Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg. Isabelle's grandfather started up the Selkirk Motor Company which ran a charabang service and set up offices in Inerleithen and also took the workers from Walkerburn and Innerleithen to the Ballantyne's mills in Peebles.